How To Make Your Organization Remote Friendly.

Fierce competition, hiring suitable candidates, acquiring and retaining loyal customers are some of the significant problems faced by startups or any company for that matter.

One of the best solutions to tackle all these challenges is really simple, “amazing employees.”

Employees are the biggest assets of an organization that are the ultimate weapon against competition, emaciated customer service, and most of the other problems you are facing or can think of.

But this simple solution has an arduous process to come around; it’s hard to find great talent all rallied up in a single place. So what do you do when you are running low on your biggest weapon, and it’s nowhere to be found around you? You look for talent scattered all around the globe.

Thanks to the internet and various communication tools available for team collaboration, it has become tremendously easy to get a hold of a person who is sitting thousands of miles away from you. Every startup wants a fast growth, and for that, they need great talent. It doesn’t matter if that talent is in the vicinity or in a completely different timezone.

You might even easily find employees with great caliber who are working remotely for you, but that brings me to a few critical questions, “Are you able to retain your remote workers?”, “Are you providing an environment where your remote team can be productive, where they can grow?”

Checking in on your in-house team, taking care of the issues they are facing is quite easy, but remote workers are physically distant from you, you can’t see what they are doing, what problems they are facing and it certainly isn’t viable to have a call every hour to check in on your remote team. This leads to isolation, reduced social interaction, etc., which further leads to stress and anxiety.

Related: “How to stay mentally healthy while working remotely?”

It’s indispensable to develop a plan to include your remote team in your in-house family, getting them acquainted with your company culture, making them feel comfortable.

Let’s look at some of the ways you can make your organization remote friendly.

1. Communication:

Communication is one of the most important factors if you wish to make your organization remote friendly. You have a distributed team, so water cooler talk isn’t an option anymore, swinging by your coworkers’ desk is impossible, so it’s time to rely heavily on instant messengers and video calls.

In one of a webinar “5 Mistakes You Are Making With Your Remote Staff”, Krish Chopra, Co-Founder of NPHub said –

“You have water cooler talks or coffee where you hang out with your coworkers every day, you need to schedule that time for your remote teams as well.”

Create channels where your team can communicate, not just about work but in general as well. Constant communication is a good way of getting the in-house team and your remote team to interact and know each other well, and also to get work done.

Remember, there is no such thing as over-communicating when you have a distributed team.

2. Trust:

If you want your company to grow as a distributed team, you need to foster a culture of trust. The employer isn’t aware of the whereabouts of his remote team and the work routine they have, but that should not be a reason for him to be dubious about this entire work arrangement. Employers should trust their remote teams, and that’s how they can set a great example of trust in the organization as a whole.

Encourage your team to make mistakes, talk about those mistakes, learn from each other and bond together.

Don’t be afraid of giving leadership opportunities to remote workers just because they aren’t in front of you all the time.

3. Train your team:

It’s critical to give your remote team the appropriate training needed to perform their work and grow them into their job profiles.

Your in-house team always has the advantage of watching you work and pick up on the tips and tricks, but this won’t be the case with your remote team.

You need to think about your employees working remotely, how to give them an environment where they can thrive, what would help them grow and be better than ever, how can they enjoy their work and be more productive.

4. Team retreats are also for remote teams:

Team retreats are probably the thing employees look forward to all the time. Who would want to miss an opportunity to go out with the team, have fun, and especially meet your remote teams?

Organizations should organize a team retreat once in a while; this gives a chance for the in-house team to meet face to face with the remote team.

Meeting in a new environment, away from work, getting to know each other over a couple of drinks and games, can make your remote team feel like they are an essential part of the family.

5. Buddy system:

This can work wonders when it comes to increasing interaction within your remote team.

Pairing members from your in-house team with members from your remote teams is an excellent way of training your remote team, getting the job done and making your team feel comfortable around each other.

Conclusion:

It’s high time for organizations to start planning about working with a remote team, the millennial workforce is on the rise, they can’t stick to a 9 to 5 schedule, they like to do things on their own terms, on their own time. Making them feel like an integral part of your organization should be one of the top priorities.

Millennials come with a different perception towards the world and have a different skill set; it’s up to you how to utilize those skills in the best interest of the employees and the company.

Above guidelines will get you started for making your organization remote friendly, then again you need to think on your feet in different situations that may arise and make changes accordingly.